Celebration of "The End of the Innocence"

[shunlvswx]

Happy 28th Birthday to The End Of The Innocence album. I think this is my top three favorite album.

[Delilah]

Happy birthday/anniversary to what is probably Don's best album--although it's not my personal favorite, I still love it. It's a little too "heavy" sounding at times, but Don's singer-singwriter skills absolutely shine here. There are a lot of great tracks, and by this point it seems Don had matured and grown up. Yet he still rocked out and sounded current. He didn't wander into adult contemporary mode like some of his peers e.g. Glenn.

I remember these singles well from those days: "End of the Innocence" which hit #8 on the charts, and both "Heart of the Matter" and "The Last Worthless Evening" which peaked at #21. A 4th single, "New York Minute" reached #48. Not too shabby!

[Jonny Come Lately]

Happy anniversary to The End of the Innocence!

On a personal level, not only is this my favourite Don solo album, it is also the album that introduced me to his music (a decade before I first listened to the Eagles with Hotel California!). As much time has elapsed between me first hearing it as a child and today as between then and its release in 1989, which makes me feel vaguely old! It's also funny how the anniversary of the album's release coincided almost exactly with my first (but hopefully not last) Don concert. Two of my three favourite Don solo songs are on this record, these being the songs that bookend the album (EOTI and HOTM).

[Dawn]

I loved this album when it was first released and I still love it .. hard to choose a favorite song, for me, they are all great.

[shunlvswx]

Happy 29th Birthday to The End Of The Innocence album. This was my favorite album until Cass County came around. LOL

[groupie2686]

I love this album, definitely my favorite of Henley's. The End of the Innocence and The Heart of the Matter are two of my favorite songs of all time.

[Delilah]

EOTI represents some of Don’s best work. He gives a lot of credit to Danny Kortchmar and Stan Lynch in this album review.

As with his previous solo efforts, Innocence found Henley working extensively with producer and session player Danny Kortchmar, who'd been a crucial part of his stable for 1984's Building the Perfect Beast and 1982's I Can't Stand Still.

"I have the final say on what goes on my records, but Danny's the man. It's his baby," Henley told Modern Drummer. "He's got a little studio in his house, and he does a lot of work right there in his basement. The key is that I know how to conceptualize to him, and he knows how to read me. If I want to write a song with a certain style or about a certain subject, he knows what I'm talking about. We talk to each other sometimes by referencing old records or certain styles of records: Motown, the Philadelphia Sound, and Memphis. We talk in a language we both understand."

Also of extreme importance was the involvement of soon-to-be-former Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch, who received a special thanks in the liner notes because, as Henley bluntly pointed out, "he deserved it." "He's a real morale booster," he explained. "When we were into our second year working on the album and were getting completely batty and nuts, Stan would come down to the studio and just sit around with us sometimes and make things lighter. Stan's a very funny, very bright guy. Sometimes he assisted in production. Kootch and I would sometimes get so fatigued that Stan would catch things that we weren't exactly listening for. He was a fresh set of ears, a fresh sounding board."

“Revisiting Don Henley’s ‘The End of the Innocence’” by Jeff Giles, Ultimate Classic Rock, June 27, 2015

He also claims to not be a perfectionist!

[sodascouts]

Happy belated birthday to The End of the Innocence!

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Well, I'm also late to the celebration, but ...

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY END OF THE INNOCENCE!!!

This is Don at his finest IMHO. I love this album - it is my favorite of all Don's solo albums and my second favorite Eagles solo album of all time.

[shunlvswx]

Happy 30th Birthday to The End of The Innocence. One of my favorite albums of Don's. Great songs, great special guest and everything else.